by Anya Seton
“Nor was that time I speak of in Tudor England, the first in which I failed you two,” said Akananda, but Lily did not hear him. He looked tenderly down on them both, and went to the door. He raised his voice. “I’m sending a nurse in with a tablet I want you to take, Mrs. Taylor. You may stay with Celia for a time, but please don’t talk. Let her rest.”
Lily nodded mutely.
Akananda’s visit to Medfield next day was considerably delayed. He stopped at the clinic to see his patient and found her sitting up in bed drinking beef broth, and wearing a pink satin bed jacket her mother had brought her. Nurse Kelly was beside the bed, and greeted Akananda with a broad smile.
“Oh, we do feel better, Doctor! We’ll be dangling this afternoon, and maybe take a step or two tomorrow—won’t we, pet?”
Celia assented with a little nod, and a weak smile. “I still get muddled—I had such strange dreams, you were in them, Doctor, only you had a beard, I think.” Her face puckered, her gray eyes grew confused. “Something had happened, something terrible . . .”
“Och—” said the nurse quickly. “Iverybody has nightmares. Finish your broth, dear, and a nice bit o’ custard to follow.”
Celia obediently drank, while Akananda scrutinized her. They had brushed most of the electrode gum out of her hair, which lay around her face like a little dark cap. The color was good under the rather sallow skin, but there were still signs of strain in the muscles around the gray eyes, and the bones were a trifle sharp, as was natural after the long fast. A pleasant little face, but held none of the luring rose and gold beauty of Celia de Bohun, whose face he still distinctly remembered. This face would not inflame men, or lead its owner towards wantonness and destruction.
He thought of the night at Medfield—Lord, only four days ago—when this Celia had suddenly merged with the other one—the wild sparkle she had shown, her reckless disappearance into the garden with Harry—her defiance. Harry Jones, it was hard to believe that he had once been Anthony Browne, Lord Montagu—and yet Akananda thought so. But if the law of Karma could be neatly explained he wondered what had happened during the rest of Lord Montagu’s life, so that the soul this time chose for habitation a rather commonplace man, dedicated to womanizing and eloquent only on the subject of his war years. In his case religion, his Catholicism, had not carried over—probably because it had never been a deep conviction. As for the Duchess—perhaps she had not altered much from the Lady Magdalen she had been, except for a veneer of beauty and sophistication—both chiefly the products of the present century. She had been a great lady, an aristocrat then, she was so still. She had again been born in a Cumberland castle; she had again moved south with marriage; and doubtless, might repeat the underlying pattern, having seen no reason to change it—as yet. Still there had been a change. While delving in the British Museum Akananda had found a small seventeenth century book purporting be the biography of Lady Montagu. He had banned it rapidly and been repelled by the bigotry and smug prudery of Magdalen Dacre’s latter years. Whatever she was now did not include prudish bigotry.
Celia was dozing and Akananda sat down beside her for a moment, until her nurse should come back from an errand. He briefly considerd the vivid and painful experience he had lived through during the last days. It was not like watching a film—it was very like reading an absorbing novel in which the author dips at will into the mind of each character. The difference lay in the purpose behind—Akananda’s purpose, and that of the enlightened being who had directed it.
Most of the central figures had undoubtedly been brought together at the Marsdons’ house party last week so that there might be a chance of resolving an ancient tragedy which was still producing tragedy.
Sue Blake, however, had not appeared in Tudor times. On the other hand there was no identification in the present with Wat Farrier or, indeed, the three Tudor monarchs of those bygone years.
At least, Akananda thought, cruelty is no longer condoned when it occurs now. We have few religious persecutions, nobody in England is burned at the stake for his beliefs, or is tortured, killed, according to a despot’s whims.
We have achieved instead a fuzzy general tolerance, less exciting but a step upward climb on the spiral.
He was roused by Celia, who suddenly said, “Where’s Richard?” in a plaintive voice. “Shouldn’t he be here? I want him.”
Akananda started. The fascinating puzzles remaining from the past were not paramount. The central dilemma remained.
“Why, I’m sure Sir Richard will be up shortly,” he said. “He too has been ill.”
“Oh, poor darling,” said Celia. “Is it his back? Maybe the flu. He was acting rather feverish before the—” she frowned, trying to remember, “—the house party, when I got sick!”
“He’ll be all right,” said Akananda, trying to impel a confidence he did not feel. “Quite okay.”
Nurse Kelly returned as Celia nodded. “I’m longing to see him”—she broke off and looked at her left hand. “Where’s my ring . . . the Marsdon ring? . . . I had it over the wedding band. Somebody took it off!”
“Now, now, dear—” said the nurse quickly. “Ye mustn’t fret yourself . . . is this it?” She took the amethyst ring from the bed table drawer. “’Twas on the washstand, we found it when we tidied ye up.”
Celia took the ring and smiled. She put it back on her finger. “Of course. I seem to have forgotten a whole lot, but it doesn’t matter, I guess. I had a fall, didn’t I? Or was it an accident? Somebody was talking about a car crash on the A-twenty-seven and needing beds . . . Richard hasn’t been hurt, has he?” Her pupils dilated, and she caught her lip.
“No—” said Akananda, with such conviction that Celia relaxed. “Sir Richard has not been hurt. I want you to stop talking, eat what the nurse gives you, and then sleep dreamlessly for three hours.” He raised his brown hand, moved it slowly in circles, then smoothed her forehead. “Eat and then sleep, Celia. You will awaken refreshed. Tonight the same. Eat and then sleep. Awake refreshed.”
He had hypnotized many patients and with varying results, but never had he had so receptive a subject. He waited until she finished the tiny custard, saw her eyelids droop, then said to the nurse, “Don’t disturb her today—no dangling, much less walking. I’ll clear it with Sir Arthur.”
The nurse nodded. “I’ve faith in ye, Doctor, God bless ye—no matter what the matron thinks,” she added under her breath.
Akananda left Celia’s room and went downstairs. As he passed the waiting room a small, grizzled man darted out, and clutched his arm.
“Doctor . . . please . . .” he said in a muffled squeak. “I’ve been here an hour, they won’t tell me anything!”
Akananda, whose mind was entirely set on the conflict ahead, had difficulty in placing the contorted face, the puckered eyes which were red with weeping. “And what is it?” he said.
“You know me, Doctor—George Simpson. We met at Medfield. How’s Lady Marsdon?”
“She’s doing well.” Akananda was puzzled, though an interior signal was alerted. “No reason to be distraught.” His own memories of the other lifetime experience in Celia’s hospital room were beginning to fade, and except that George Simpson was connected with futility and terror—of which he had had quite enough—he barely remembered the man. “No need to be so excited about Lady Marsdon . . .” he repeated coldly.
“Well, you see—” George Simpson chewed on his little gray mustache, “’tis Edna—she had an accident last night, bad, very bad. She’s in a hospital now—isolation—they won’t let me near her. But the only thing she said before the pain got so bad was ‘Celia’—and knowing that was Lady Marsdon’s Christian name, and she so ill, I thought I’d come to the clinic and inquire.”
“Ah-h—” said Akananda. George Simpson now had his full attention, and he drew the distracted husband into a small private consultation room. “Sit down, sir. Tell me what happened to Mrs. Simpson.”
The little man made an effort. He fishe
d out his pipe, tried to fill it, then gave up as the tobacco spilled all over his knees. “She was burned,” he said with a gulp. “When I got home from the office, they’d already smelled the smoke and broken in—they heard her screams—people in the flat next us. They got it out—’twasn’t much fire but Edna’s kimona had caught, and she was all in flames—they rolled her in the carpet.” George made a dry noise and put his hands over his eyes. “It’s horrible,” he whispered. “They doubt she’ll live—some third degree burns, her flesh was charred—her face—”
Akananda was silent a moment before he put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I’m deeply sorry. Can you tell me how it happened? It’s better if you talk.”
“Must’ve been the spirit lamp,” answered George dully. “Lit it to make a cup of tea . . . she . . . liked to save the gas. And then . . . she wasn’t quite herself, maybe. Had a—a tincture the chemist gave her. When she’d take a lot . . . she’d not be quite herself.”
“I see . . .” said Akananda after a pause. “A very sad accident. I sympathize with you, Mr. Simpson.” He had compassion in his voice, but he felt immense relief. In the end, the law of Karma had worked, not quite as one might expect for the retribution of the murder and suicide once caused by Emma Allen, but in the great agony and purging of seemingly accidental fire. Yet, there was a link which only he could discern. Edna Simpson’s accident had happened last night, probably at the time that Celia had been reliving the moment of her own death at Ightham Mote.
“Shall I ring the hospital for you, and find out Mrs. Simpson’s condition now?” he asked. “They’ll be more apt to give me information.”
George nodded, and mumbled the number.
Akananda reached for the telephone and spoke for some minutes. He put the receiver softly back on its cradle.
George lifted his wobbly little chin and stared at the doctor’s face. “She’s gone . . .” he said.
Akananda slowly bent his head. “You should have someone with you. Children? Relatives?”
“We had no children, ’twas always a grief to her . . . there’s my brother, John Simpson—works in the City. Oh, Doctor, I can’t believe it . . . she’s . . . she was often difficult—lots of people didn’t like Edna, and she’d altered of late, so discontented and touchy, but I was fond of her . . . and my God, what a ghastly death . . . I can’t believe it . . . such a cruel death . . . when I think of her screaming for help all alone in the flat . . .”
Akananda sighed. “In time you’ll forget,” he said. “Now, what is your brother’s phone number?”
Jiddu Akananda and Lily Taylor arrived at Medfield Place that evening in the chauffeur-driven car Lily had rented in London.
They spoke but little on the ride, and Lily’s apprehensions were gradually allayed by the Hindu’s quiet presence. She felt strength flowing from him, and rested in it. A last minute check on Celia had confirmed steady improvement, and a composure which was new. Though she was still weak, there was nothing left of the childishness and confusion she had shown upon first waking from her deathlike trance.
She had made no reference to her illness, nor to Richard. She had talked a little to Nurse Kelly about Ireland, and then America, where the nurse had many relations. Just as Lily left, Celia asked for a Bible.
“A quite sane wish, Mother,” she had said, smiling at Lily’s consternation. “Don’t be alarmed. You did send me to Sunday school back in Lake Forest, you know! There are some verses I want to look up. It’s funny, I used to hate Bible classes, but some of it seems to have stuck.”
A Bible was found and when Lily left, Celia was quietly leafing through the pages and pausing to read now and then.
“You don’t think that a sign of abnormality?” Lily said anxiously to Akananda in the hospital corridor. “I mean, it’s so unlike her to ask for the Bible, she’s always been something of an agnostic.”
“I don’t think it abnormal,” said Akananda, “and I think that you’ll find Celia changed in many ways. Your own delvings and gropings and fundamental spirituality probably caused her to rebel—this is natural, but not final.”
The car purred through the twilight towards Sussex, and it wasn’t until they approached Alfriston that Lily roused herself from an exhausted doze, and sighed. “If Richard again refuses all admittance, I suppose we’ll have to put up at the Star. Telephone’s not working at Medfield Place—Richard cut the wires. Perhaps we’d better make reservations now?”
“It would be wise,” said the Hindu, “in fact, I did so before we left London.” He gave a faint, almost boyish chuckle. “I trust I’m improving in forethought and care for your comfort. There was need . . .”
Lily looked quickly around in the gloom of the back seat. “How silly,” she said with an uncertain laugh. “You’ve been wonderful through all this—this awful mess. And . . .” she paused, searching for the right words, embarrassed. “You’re a professional man, you’ve stood by, given a lot of your time . . . and I’m fortunately quite able to . . .”
“Recompense me with a generous stipend?” said Akananda softly. “I know, my dear, but in this life, for me, money recompenses nothing. Later—perhaps—we can talk about specific ways in which you may help others.”
He put his hand suddenly over hers. She jumped with startled pleasure, then let her hand go limp under the tingling warmth.
“What do you see?” he asked very low.
Bewildered, she looked around at the Alfriston green, the church’s thick squatty spire high on a mound against the dim-lit trees and the gabled roof lines of the old buildings. “I see Alfriston,” she said, “what else?”
“What do you feel, then?” he asked, his grip tightened on her hand.
“Why . . .” said Lily slowly, “it seems foolish, but I did have a flash just then—white columns like a temple, against a blue, blue sky—I felt love, desertion, sorrow . . . a man who abandoned me and—our little girl . . . grieving.”
“Yes, just so,” said Akananda.
They were silent again, while the hedgerows slipped by and the Downs—humped up darkly green and mysterious on their right.
Then Akananda spoke in a tender low voice. “My love for you is still there—but in a higher form. You may trust it, now.”
Lily quivered. She caught her breath like a girl. From any other man she would have thought this an overture; she had received many since her widowhood, as what pretty rich woman did not? She knew that from him it couldn’t be anything so crude, and that the melting and release she felt were not materialistic.
As they passed by a village church, he spoke again. “While Celia was in great danger, you went to pray in Southwark Cathedral. Do you know why you were drawn to that place?”
“No . . .” she said after a moment, “and it didn’t seem to help. I sat for an hour, as you’d told me, but I couldn’t calm down. I kept having a feeling that there was something behind the church, buildings, unhappy buildings . . . but when I went out to look, I didn’t see anything but warehouses. I took a cab back to Claridge’s.”
“There was unhappiness for you once where those buildings stand,” said Akananda, “it was Lord Montagu’s priory four hundred years ago.”
“Did I live there?” asked Lily in a whisper. “Do you know that I did?”
“Yes,” he said. “But there’s no need for you to puzzle over it. I was merely curious. Look!” he added on a brisker tone. “Aren’t those the gates to Medfield Place? They’re shut, I wonder if they’re locked. Will you ask the chauffeur to find out?”
Lily tapped on the dividing window, and complied in a hushed voice. The chauffeur nodded, touched his cap and presently flung the gates wide open for the car to pass through.
The rhododendrons and the laurel were blooming along the short avenue, bunches of pale stars in the gloaming. Though it was past nine o’clock, the eerie glimmer of a late—June evening suffused the rambling house and its architectural mixture of periods.
Akananda retained some me
mory of the place as it had looked when he, as Julian, had stopped there briefly with Tom Marsdon on the way to Ightham Mote—much smaller then, lacking the Victorian wing, and even some Elizabethan room which Tom must have added himself. But the dovecote and huge tithe barn seemed unaltered. And was that not another confirmation, he thought, of the many outward changes which a soul as well as a house might accrue without affecting its essential individuality?
The car drew up before the entrance steps; the chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. “Seems to be nobody about, madam,” he said to Lily. “Shall I ring?”
She said, “Please,” and sat tautly, gripping her suede handbag, staring at the dark, silent house.
The chauffeur pushed the bell, then stood back and waited. Nothing happened. He pushed again, and after a further wait came back to the car.
“Is there some staff, madam? I could go round to the back entrance. Front door’s locked, I tried.”
“There was staff . . .” said Lily unhappily, “at least Nanny was here Wednesday when I came to see Richard, though she acted very strange and scared, spoke through the crack, just said that Richard had given orders that nobody was to be admitted—especially not me.” Lily pressed her lace handkerchief to her mouth. “Oh, Doctor . . . what is happening here?”
Akananda did not answer. He got out of the car and walked around to the garden, which was fragrant with roses, stock and carnations. Fireflies twinkled amidst the foliage, and over the swimming pool. He looked down at the pool. On the rectangle of water between tiny blue-glazed tiles a few brown petals floated, there was a slight scum. Incredible to realize that the scene beside this pool happened only a week ago—the apparently gay house party around the brink, the careless sunlight on bronzed bodies. The chatter, the banalities. And Richard’s graceful, reckless diving